


Back from the Dark

by theskywasblue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fluff, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: Chuck is gone, the world spins on...and then Dean starts getting some strange phone calls.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 178





	Back from the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So I may have gone a little bit off the rails after 15x18...but didn't we all?
> 
> Then 15x19 happened, and I remembered that we cannot always trust TPTB to be kind to our hearts, so I wanted to write something that could be an ending my heart would appreciate, while making as few changes as possible to the canon we were given. And it perhaps got a bit out of control, but here it is, in all its imperfect glory.
> 
> Who knows what 15x20 will bring, but regardless...cheers fellow Dean/Cas shippers. Let us always feel this joy the way it was intended.
> 
> (Title from "Summer Morning" by Mary Oliver)

Dean knows it’s all gone to shit when Jack’s face just sort of...falls.

“I - I can’t.”

“What do you mean you _can’t?_ Aren’t you -” his tongue catches. He can’t even say it yet. It’s too weird and huge. God. Jack might actually be God, and Dean can’t even begin to process that yet.

“I can’t find him,” Jack says, hands curling and uncurling at his sides. All around them the street is filling up with people, people who don’t even know they lost whole days of their lives, who don’t know anything has changed. 

Dean feels like he’s standing in the middle of a storm.

“How hard can it be? He’s in the Empty - he’s -”

“Dean.” Sam’s hand squeezes his shoulder, and Dean barely feels it. What he does feel is his chest constricting, his ribs collapsing over his lungs and heart. A dark haze blooms at the edges of his vision, narrowing the world to Jack’s face, to the glass of tears over his eyes as he says, “Dean - Dean I’m sorry…”

***

Dean wakes to the blaring horn of an eighteen wheeler, blasting past the motel.

Despite the rude awakening, he likes these moments, the first few seconds of the day when everything is quiet except for the buzz of the mini-fridge and the sound of a television on the other side of the wall; easy and familiar, even if the room is a single now - with his gear scattered across every available surface, clothes tossed over the back of a chair, empty takeout containers on the dinette table.

Then the housekeeping cart rattles by, and Dean figures it’s time to get up. He’s got a lot of miles to cover yet if he doesn’t want to be late.

There’s a missed call on his cell when he gets out of the shower, but it turns out to be a hang-up, from an unknown number. Probably a mistake. Dean packs up his gear, has two cups of coffee from the motel room coffee maker, which taste distinctly and familiarly of rust, and then hits the road. It’s September, and kind of already too cold to be driving with all the windows down, but Dean does it anyway, music blaring, the ashy smell of early autumn filling up the Impala, chasing away the faint smell of grave dirt from last night’s hunt. His back aches a little, but in the satisfying way of a job well done, not in a way that reminds him that he’s getting old, and he drums his hands on the steering wheel to the beat of the music, half-singing along.

It doesn’t even sting that much when he glances over at the empty passenger’s seat.

***

Dean rolls up to the house just after four-thirty, parks the Impala and just sits for a minute, watching a little boy walk a dog that must weigh twice as much as he does down the long ribbon of sidewalk. The dog is a mass of shaggy brown fur and a great lolling tongue, and it plods along with the heartbreaking patience of a truly loyal animal, not giving the leash the slightest resistance. It doesn’t even glance in Dean’s direction, when he gets out of the car, too set on the mission of getting around the block, or wherever they’re going. They’re around the corner and out of sight by the time Dean climbs up the porch to the front door, ringing the bell, even though he knows it’s unlocked, before letting himself in.

“Hello!”

“Uncle Dean!” Lilly slams into his legs like a bulldozer, almost knocking Dean on his ass. He drops his bag, gets his legs properly underneath him, and boosts her up into the sky, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder in favour of hearing her laugh before he pulls her in, and plants a smacking kiss on her rosy cheek.

“That itches!” She protests, tiny fingers in his hair, the collar of his shirt.

“Why? Did I forget to shave again?” He rubs his cheek against hers, and she squeals, helpless, squirming until he plants her on the floor again, and she immediately takes his hand, pulling him towards the living room before his boots are even off.

“Come see my rock collection, okay?” It’s not really a question at all. She’s giving Dean the same, classic puppy eyes he used to get from Sam; but this time there’s that tiny, stubborn chin tilt she gets from her mom.

“I’d love to, squirt - but I should say hi to your mom and dad first, okay?”

The house is sun-brightened, clean, and right now it smells like the best home cooking Dean has ever eaten. There are pictures on the walls, soft, blue cushions on the couch, and Sam’s freaking clown shoes by the front door. It looks like any other house in the neighbourhood, where the most exciting thing that ever happens is a battle over lemon squares, post-PTA meeting. But Dean knows there are hex bags tucked above the door frames, and old Enocian protection sigils etched meticulously into the windowsills. It’s a hunter’s house, under the hazy illusion of suburban perfection.

“Dean,” Eileen abandons the table setting and stretches up on her toes to loop her arms around his neck for a hug. “You made it.”

“Of course.” He kisses her cheek, because he likes to think it keeps Sam humble. “Sorry I was held up last time.”

“I forgive you, this time,” she pats his shoulder, quirks and eyebrow. “But you’re on dish duty tonight.”

It’s a just punishment, more or less. Dean glances over to where Sam is working at the cutting board has to fight the urge to gag. “Well I’m not gonna forgive Sammy for all that green stuff - are you kidding? Please tell me there’s meat on this menu.”

Sam rolls his eyes, long-suffering. “Broccoli is good for you, Dean.”

“I have yet to see any evidence of that. He glances down at Lilly, clutching his pant leg. “Whatddya say, squirt?”

His niece looks up at him with the biggest, sweetest doe-eyes he’s ever seen, and announces, “I like broccoli.”

“Oh god -” Dean groans, utterly betrayed. “She really _is_ your kid.”

***

Dean ends up over-full, sprawled out on the couch in the living room with a beer in his hand. He has to swear up and down on his life and his honour that he’ll tuck Lilly in after her bath; but until then it’s just him and the long process of digestion. At least until Sam joins him.

Dean watches his little brother lower himself into the battered recliner and braces himself for the inevitable. “So how is -”

Dean shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Oh, you know - the same as always.”

Sam purses his lips, suspicious. “You’re not doing anything -”

“Stupid?” Dean finishes, eyebrow raised. “Of course not. I’m doing just like I promised, Sammy. Easy hunts. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Okay, that vamp nest a couple of months ago had turned out a bit dicey, but he’d been alright in the end; and who knows more about handling vamps than Dean Winchester? Nobody, that’s who.

Sam eyes him skeptically for a moment. “Well,” he says, when he’s finished with the silent judgement routine, “If you ever need a second pair of hands -”

Dean laughs. “No way, Sam. No way. If I need help, I know where to find it. I’ve got a list of hunters as long as my arm on speed dial.”

If that failed, he could always just call the bunker. These days, there are a dozen or so hunters - mostly Apocalypse-world survivors - who have access to the Men of Letters Bunker. It’s something of a way-station, where you can go if you need a place to lie low, or to research a particularly obscure bit of lore. There are still rooms that are strictly off-limits, to which only Sam and Dean hold the keys; but there’s a dedicated land-line installed, and you can almost guarantee that no matter what time of day or night the phone rings, someone will be there to answer.

“I know you do,” Sam sighs. “It’s just -”

Dean smirks, “What? Are you getting bored? Is the honeymoon over? You know they’ve got a little blue pill that can help with that.”

“What - no! _Dean_.” Sam huffs, folding his arms. “Actually - Eileen and I went on a quick salt-and-burn a couple of weeks ago…”

Dean almost chokes on his goddamn beer. “What the hell, Sam? What about Lilly?”

“We got a sitter,” he says, like supervision is the issue.

“ _Sam_.”

But Sam just stares him down, unflinching. “You’re really going to lecture me,” he says, flat.

“Absolutely.” It’s practically as easy as breathing. Dean’s been doing it since he was at least six years old. “You have a kid.”

Sam laughs, “And? Eileen killed a ghoul when she was six months pregnant. Hell - if not for that wraith in El Paso, Lilly wouldn’t even exist.”

Dean wrinkles up his nose. “Dude. I just ate.”

Sam picks a bit of lint off the upholstery and flicks it in Dean’s direction, a stupid grin cutting across his face.

“Fine. Instead of more hunting...” Sam starts, and Dean leans back, fights the urge to put his feet up on the coffee table, because he’s about ninety percent sure where this is going, and he’s already exhausted over it. “Maybe you could take a break - for the winter. Lilly would love to have you around more.”

“Don’t do that,” Dean says, immediately, feeling his guts twist around his home-cooked meal, for real this time. “Don’t bring her into it like that.”

Sam holds up his hands, placating. “I’m just saying - I worry about you. _We_ worry about you being out there alone.”

“Hey - you -” Dean starts, feeling the familiar fire of anger rising in his chest before he can quite manage to smother it. He shouldn’t be angry, because he doesn’t envy Sam at all - not really. Mostly, he’s just glad. Glad that Sam gets his life, his house, his stupid, hybrid car and his little family. It never broke his heart the way Sam worried it would - hell, the way Dean worried it would, back before he grew up enough to know better. This might be Sam’s family, but it’s his, too - and his world is bigger, brighter with Elieen and Lilly in it.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t also hollow, sometimes; but taking the winter off isn’t going to solve that.

“I’m _fine_ , Sam,” he manages, at last.

Sam clears his throat, rubs the heels of his sock feet against the rug. He never could sit still when he was anxious. “You don’t have to do this anymore - wasn’t that the whole point?”

Maybe it was. And he’d tried it, like he and Sam promised they would. They’d dialed back the hunts. Sam had started night school. It had been pretty good for a while, but Dean was never really cut out for any of it. “I’m good at this, Sam. I’ve always been good at this. At least this way I can do something.”

The hunts help fill up the empty spaces, even if it isn’t what he wants. Any chance for something else...well, that wasn’t in the cards anymore.

Sam’s teeth click. He sighs. Dean watches his sock feet tap against the rug. It’s time, he figures, to make a tactical attempt to change the subject. He doesn’t want this to get to the point where he’s gotta bail; he promised to tuck Lilly in.

“You talked to Jack, lately?”

Sam looks at him, silently for a moment. Dean knows exactly what he’s doing - weighing the pros and cons of pushing harder, trying to see if he can guess when Dean will crack. In the end, he backs down. This time. “Yeah - he stopped by a little while ago. Why?”

Dean shrugs. What’s he supposed to say, that he misses the kid? Sam must know that he does. “I know he’s out there ‘finding himself’ and all - getting the hang of being G-O-D - but would it kill him to stop by for a Sunday dinner once and awhile?”

Sam glances at him sideways. “Have you asked him?”

“What?” Dean scrunches up his face, laughs helplessly. “Dude - it’s your house. Have _you_ asked him?”

“Of course I have. I just think he’d like to hear it from you.”

***

The guest bedroom isn’t so much a “guest” room as it is Dean’s room. Maybe he can’t have all his knives and his slightly morbid trophies on display - at least until Lilly gets a little older - but his clothes are in the closet and his books sit on the small shelf, along with a few harmless magical objects, and his favorite pictures sit on the bedside table.

Still, it doesn’t always feel like a place where he belongs.

Dean buries his face in the pillow, and tries to sleep. The ambient noise of the house pushes through, every time he gets close to the edge of unconsciousness - pipes clicking, Sam snoring in the next room, the soft buzz of the alarm clock on the bedside table eating up electricity, the occasional creak of the house, settling on its foundations. Finally, he gives up, grabbing his phone of the charger, figuring he could scan through the news, or play a few rounds of Candy Crush to settle his brain; instead, he ends up with the phone in his hand, staring at the lit-up screen, thoughtlessly tapping through apps, knowing where he’s going to end up, but pretending it isn’t going to happen.

Until it does.

He’s still got Cas’ number, saved in his phone. It’s been a while since he broke down and actually called it, listened to it go straight to voicemail, the low, confused rumble of Cas’ recorded voice: _this is my voicemail...make your voice - a mail_ \- and thought about how stupid and perfectly, perfectly fucking _Cas_ it was that he’d never bothered to record anything else, even once he knew better.

In the early days, Dean would call almost every night, and couldn't sleep until he did. Most of the time, he’d have a bottle in the other hand while he did it, but he’d sworn off the heavy stuff after Lilly was born, so there’ll be none of that now.

He might still call, though. He hasn’t in a long time - five, maybe six months. He’s still got his finger hovering just over the screen, trying to decide, when the phone starts to ring. There’s no caller ID, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t someone Dean knows.

“Hello?” Static. Dean sits up on instinct, as if the very slight change in altitude might improve his reception. “Hello?”

The phone beeps, connection gone. Dean blinks at it for a moment, then tosses his phone back onto the end table, and finally puts his head down to sleep.

***

Dean leaves early the next morning. He doesn’t have a case to work on exactly, but there’s a rash of missing person’s cases in Millersburg, Ohio that look like they might be something up his alley, and he wants to be able to stop for lunch on the way without losing too much time.

Around noon, he’s lucky enough to find a busy truck stop - the place packed enough that the food has got to be decent - and picks up two burgers, each with a side of fries, stretching his legs in the parking lot while he waits for them to cook up the order. A young guy in a ball cap pauses on his way inside, flashes Dean a smile.

“Sweet ride,” he says, grinning.

“Yeah, thanks.”

For a second, the guy looks like he might say more, but then his smile shrinks to something shy, and he disappears inside. Dean picks up his order a few minutes later, leaves the car in the lot, and hikes around the rest stop until he finds a secluded bench. A brass plate on the back dedicates it to the memory of Roy. No last name, no heartfelt message. Dean unwraps his lunch, transforming the paper bag into a makeshift picnic blanket - two burgers, two orders of crisp, golden fries, two drinks. For a moment he sits silent, considering, rubbing his palms on his soft-worn jeans.

Then, he prays.

“Hey kid - I know you’re busy or whatever. But if you’ve maybe got twenty minutes...I’ve got lunch. I even had them put that green goop on your burger that you like.”

Silence; then, the familiar _woosh pop_ of atoms rearranging.

“Guacamole?” Jack asks, his shadow falling over the bench a second later, like it has to catch up with him.

“Yeah - that stuff. Have a seat.

Jack still looks mostly like he did the last time Dean saw him - maybe six months ago at Lilly’s birthday party. In fact, he still looks mostly like he did five years ago - same shirt, same jacket, same jeans. Dean can’t judge - it’s not like his wardrobe is exactly bursting these days - but it reminds him how distinctly not human Jack is now; that he doesn’t need to shower, or change his clothes, or even really to eat, though he still does it, probably because he enjoys it.

And, naturally, that reminds Dean of Cas.

Sometimes, he wishes Cas’d had other clothes, something in his closet at the bunker that Dean could have packed up and taken with him. As it is, Dean has saved his old jacket, the one with the handprint permanently stained into the shoulder; and there’s a fake ID for Agent Moscone tucked into the back of the glove box, but that’s it. Cas never quite got the hang of keeping things. There was probably a good reason for that.

“So, how’s it going, kid?”

Jack chews thoughtfully, wipes his face on the back of his hand. Dean passes him a napkin, because he raised Sam with manners - even if he forgets his own - he’s gonna make sure Jack has them too.

“It’s...overwhelming,” Jack sighs. He stares at his burger like it holds the secrets of the universe. “There’s so much need. But too much intervention is…”

“Unfair?” Dean suggests. He feels a little itchy, just at the thought. He likes to think that Jack wouldn’t do that to anybody - make them live a life on the end of a bunch of carefully-pulled strings; but there’s that old saying about absolute power that keeps coming to mind.

“Unfair,” Jack agrees. “And complicated. How do I choose who to intervene for? And what about the situations that I don’t intervene in? Even thinking about it I can’t -”

“Hey,” Dean squeezes his shoulder, reassuring. “Don’t worry about it, okay? You’re doing a good job. The planet hasn’t blown up yet, anyway, so that’s something.”

Jack smiles, weakly. “You really think so?”

“As someone who lives on the planet? Yeah, I think so.”

Dean slurps on his soda, emphatically, hoping Jack will take that and run with it. How do you help a phenomenal cosmic power with his self-esteem issues? Hell, Dean doesn’t even know how to deal with his entirely too human issues.

“I’ve been working on creating things,” Jack says, suddenly. When Dean blinks at him, a little alarmed, he clarifies, “just plants for now. It’s easy to hide things in the rainforest - so I don’t think anyone will notice. Animals are a little more complicated, and I don’t want to get them wrong.”

_No kidding_ Dean thinks. Well, as long as he doesn’t end up creating a _Little Shop of Horrors_ situation somewhere in the uncontacted jungle, there’s not much Dean can say.

“I’d like to create some more angels, but I have no idea how.”

Dean chokes, inhaling a chunk of half-chewed ground beef. Jack pats him on the back until he manages to clear his airway and demand, “What the hell do you need angels for?”

Jack looks at him, guileless. “They serve an important purpose in heaven.”

“Yeah,” Dean snorts, “being _dicks_.”

Jack goes quiet after that, just eating his burger. It’s actually a nice day for eating outside, Dean thinks - maybe one of the last really nice days they’re going to get.

“I wouldn’t try and replace Castiel,” Jack says, softly. “I still look for him. All the time.”

Dean sighs, sets his burger back in his lap. “I know, kid. I know you wouldn’t give up on him.”

“I don’t understand,” Jack picks at the sesame seeds on the top of his bun, flicks them away into the dirt as his feet, even though Dean’s pretty sure he doesn’t have anything against them.. When Sam was a kid, he wouldn’t even touch a bun or a piece of bread that had seeds on it. “Chuck didn’t have any trouble bringing Lucifer out of the Empty; but now it’s like - it’s like the Empty isn’t even there. Like it doesn’t exist.”

“Maybe it doesn’t.” Dean bites the inside of his cheek, drags the heel of his boot against the dry earth under the bench. “I mean - maybe Chuck destroyed it once he pulled Lucifer out. Just like he destroyed all those other worlds. That’s not your fault.”

“It _feels_ like my fault.”

And boy, does Dean get that, big time. He’s worn that hair shirt his whole damned life, and he didn’t realize how angry and twisted up it was making him until he’d lost Cas, and almost lost Jack; and he still doesn’t really know how to apologize for any of it - or how to apologize for the fact that Jack had to take a giant, metaphorical, super-powered bullet and become God, just so the world could keep spinning.

“Cas wouldn’t blame you. I don’t blame you. Got it?” He would have, once. He’d have been happy to blame anybody else so that he didn’t have to feel it. Look where that got him. “So don’t beat yourself up over it so much. And come to dinner once and awhile.”

“Okay,” Jack says, he’s looking down at his shoes, but he’s smiling.

Dean’s phone rings in his pocket. He pulls it out, but the caller ID is blocked again, so he hits ignore, and goes back to his lunch.

“Who was that?” Jack asks.

“Dunno.” Dean slurps back the last of his drink, letting the hollow rattle of the empty straw drag out for a good few seconds, just to make sure he got it all. “Now finish your fries.”

***

Dean rolls into Millersburg just a little too late to do anything constructive on his potential case; so instead of hitting up the police station like he planned, he gets a room at a dumpy little motel just off the highway, picks up something to eat from the diner next door (which he isn’t even really hungry for and ends up getting stuffed into the mini-fridge) and sacks out in front of the T.V.

Dean’s only half-awake, whatever weird dream is hovering in the back of his mind merging strangely with the fluttering, near-silent images of late-night T.V., when his phone starts vibrating its way across the bedside table, rattling over ancient water stains left by untended drinks. Dean rolls half-over, fumbles blindly towards the dull blue light, swipes across the screen and pulls it to his ear without really looking.

“H’lo?” There’s static on the line, cold and piercing. Dean presses a hand over his free ear as it hisses and clicks. “Hello?”

“Dean?”

The phone slips from his hand, thuds against the carpet. Dean dives after it, clawing across the carpet with shaky hands.

“Cas - Cas - fuck!” The phone sits dead in his hand. He rolls back over his recent calls and sees it again: _No Caller ID_.

His heart is beating so hard it feels like his ribs are going to shatter, his skin buzzes from the adrenaline high. His hands slip against the phone casing, damp with panicked sweat as he pulls up his contacts list. It doesn’t ring, just goes straight to that familiar voice: _This is my voicemail -_ Dean hangs up before it can finish, dials again, and again, and again. 

Finally, the phone slips from his hand, thuds softly against the grimy carpet. Dean slumps against the bedframe and tries to remember how to breathe.

Dean checks out at three a.m., and turns the car back around, telling himself that later he’ll call someone, drop the line to them on the weird disappearances; but for now, he just wants to drive.

He makes it about two hours before the center line starts wavering like a mirage, and he’s forced to pull over and sleep.

His dreams are half-delirious, full of ringing phones, static, and Cas’ voice.

***

“Dean - slow down - would you - Dean!”

Dean slams to a halt in the middle of the living room, blinks. Sam points towards the ceiling, and everyone in the living room holds their breath. It’s almost eleven, and Dean has the sudden, jarring realization that he probably looks like an absolute lunatic, pacing his brother’s living room, rambling about phone calls from beyond the grave.

“Okay,” Sam says, finally, slowly, motioning Dean towards the couch. Dean looks over at it like it’s going to jump up and grab him. “Are you _sure_ it was Cas?”

Dean opens his mouth, closes it again. Sam and Eileen exchange a look - and Dean knows what they’re thinking, he’s sure he does. They think he’s slipping, that he’s had some kind of mental break and he’s headed back to the early days head-first; with the drinking, and the not sleeping, and researching The Empty in the Bunker’s archives until his eyes were so raw and dry that they felt like they were going fall out of his damned head.

“I’m not crazy, Sam.”

“No one said you’re crazy. But you were half-asleep. You said so yourself.”

“It was _him_.” Dean thrusts the phone at his brother like a talisman. “Look - he’s been calling for days and I had _no idea_.” His throat goes tight, suddenly, and Dean swallows hard, rubs fitfully at his eyes like an overtired toddler. “It was him, Sam. I know it was.”

“Okay,” Sam says, in that gentle way that Dean hates, but always desperately needs. “I believe you - but you look at you, Dean - you’re a wreck. You come in here all worked up…”

“I’m sorry, alright - but what am I supposed to do?”

Sam and Eileen exchange another look, a few signs. “I’ll get the books,” Eileen says at last. “You make some coffee.”

***

Jack shows up as they’re eating breakfast, popping into the room with a rush of energy that makes the curtains swirl and sets the clock back three and a half minutes.

“Hi Jack!” Lilly says, cheerfully unperturbed, her mouth stuffed full of Cheerios. By virtue of being the only person in the house who had a decent night’s sleep, she’s in a great mood. Dean, on the other hand, feels like he has sand in his eyeballs and static electricity in his brain.

“Hello Lilly,” Jack says; then, to Dean. “Was it really him?”

“You couldn’t show up last night?” Dean grumbles, rubbing his forehead. “I was praying my ass off.”

“Dean,” Sam sighs, stirring his awful bowl of chia seed porridge. If he had eaten like that as a kid, he never would have grown into such a giant.

“It’s hard to hear,” Jack says, eyes shifting around the kitchen guiltily. “People are praying all the time.”

Dean waves him off. “Forget it, okay? And yeah - it was him. I’m sure it was.”

He had spent all night pouring over the lore books that Sam had lifted from the bunker and stored in his basement - just a few of The Men of Letters’ greatest hits - and wishing the phone would just ring, so he could prove to Sam he wasn’t going nuts. Now, the books are piled in the corner of the living room, and Dean’s phone is on the charger, but it hasn’t rung at all.

“We think it was,” Sam clarifies. “But he hasn’t called again.”

Jack picks up the phone, turns it over in his hands. “I still can’t find him. I tried before I came here.” He swipes his finger across the screen, but Dean gets up and snatches it from his hand.

“Don’t mess around with it, alright. What if he’s trying to call right now?” The phone stays silent. Dean picks up his cereal bowl and dumps it in the sink. “He’ll call again.”

But even as he says it, there’s this tiny seed of doubt taking root in his chest. Dean is good at doubt, he always has been.

“Maybe we should try and summon him,” Sam suggests. “You know, a seance.”

Lilly looks up from slurping the milk out of her cereal bowl and asks, “What’s a say-ants?”

Eileen sighs. “Boys - maybe not at the breakfast table?”

So they move the discussion into the living room.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dean says, flatly. As much as he wants to talk to Cas - he’d give a fucking arm for it, at this point - there’s a certain sticking point. “First of all, none of us is a medium - “

“I’m God,” Jack offers, with a shrug.

Dean continues, undaunted, “And the last time we tried to talk to Cas like that, one of us ended up without eyeballs.”

“I know a few spells,” Sam argues. “Stuff from Rowena’s books. We shouldn't need a medium. I’d just need some things from the bunker - and Jack can do that, right Jack?”

Jack nods, enthusiastic, his face bright. Dean feels like his stomach is spinning around itself.

“And you’re sure no one’s going to end up - turned into a pillar of salt or something?” he presses, because as eager as he is, Sam has a family now - and he won’t risk that, even for Cas.

Sam’s response is, “I mean - pretty sure. The spells are designed for spirits, not angels...and we’ll need one that can bring us a specific - uh - entity, instead of whatever’s just hanging around. But it’s worth a shot.”

Dean swallows his doubt and says, “Alright, let’s do it.”

Sam ends up deciding that, not only do they need a spell to summon a specific spirit, but they need another to amplify the power of a summoning. Anything, he reasons, that will give them a better chance of actually making a strong connection, since Cas obviously hasn’t been able to manage it himself.

Dean’s not entirely sure that whatever he’s doing won’t blow the roof off the house if it goes bad.

They shuttle Lilly off to an obliging neighbour just for safety’s sake, and Sam goes full _Sabrina the Teenage Witch_ in the living room: candles and weird objects that he slaps Dean’s anxious hands away from, sigils painted in an alarming assortment of fluids. Dean starts to feel more and more anxious that it isn’t going to work - Cas isn’t a spirit, they’re not even sure that he’s on _the other side_ , wherever that is. When his pacing starts to get on Sam’s nerves, he packs it up and moves to the kitchen, sets himself to washing the breakfast dishes, just to have something to do with his hands.

Sam calls him back when they’re ready.

“Right, so -” he gestures at the couch, and Dean sits. The spread before him looks like the world’s worst swap meet table. “You activate the spell by completing the sigil using the powder in the dish there. Basically, whoever completes the sigil becomes a medium for the duration of the spell.”

“Which is how long?”

“Until the sigil burns off. A few minutes hopefully. I tried to make a few modifications to stretch the time. The issue is that using someone as a conduit who doesn’t actually have any skill as a medium might have some...adverse effects.”

Dean fixes his brother with a cold, level stare. “Sam.”

“Yeah?”

“If my head blows up like that dude in _Scanners_ , I will haunt you _so bad_.”

Sam makes a constipated face somewhere between offended and openly horrified. “Maybe someone else should stay in the room with you.”

“Not a chance.”

“Alright - alright,” he starts shepherding Jack and Eileen towards the kitchen. “We’ll wait in here. Just - be careful.”

Dean resists the urge to point out that it’s impossible to be careful if he had no idea what he’s doing. Sam’s setup takes up the entire coffee table - the final sigil, sketched out in a mixture of sand, salt, and ground lamb’s liver, doesn’t look like anything Dean has seen up close before. Sam might have made a damn good witch, if he wasn’t such a dyed-in-the-wool hunter. There’s an obvious spot where the sigil is incomplete - a tiny line disconnected. Dean dips his fingers into the sand-mix, only to pull them out again and wipe them on his pants. He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and sets it on the table. It might not be a traditional method of communicating across the veil, but it’s the one that Cas has been using so far.

Dean completes the circle. There’s a soft burst of light, and the air smells suddenly, sharply, of burning hair. Why is it that magic can never smell nice? The air buzzes faintly, and the hairs on Dean’s arms stand up. Dean is suddenly very aware of the blood moving around in his brain. He has a horrible premonition of his head exploding like an overripe jack-o-lantern packed full of fireworks, but pushes it aside. He folds his hands together, fingers interlocked, and bows his head until his forehead rests against them. Then he prays.

“Cas?” It comes out as barely a whisper, and he has to pause, clear his throat. “I - I uh - don’t know if you're still tuned into this frequency at all...We’re here, Cas. We heard you. _I_ heard you. We’re gonna find you, wherever you are; you just gotta give us a sign. Anything at all, anything you can do so we know you’re there.”

Silence. It’s so quiet that Dean can hear the clock in the kitchen, ticking, can hear the subtle shift of cloth against cloth, of hushed breath as the others wait anxiously; he can hear his own heartbeat loudest of all. His head starts to pound along with it.

“Cas?”

The glass on one of the photographs, hanging on the wall behind the sofa cracks, like a gunshot. Dean jumps, banging his leg on the coffee table, sending the bowlful of Sam’s magic mix spilling across the carpet, rune tiles and bone dice scattering in all directions as Dean’s cell starts to ring. Dean snatches it up, but his hands are shaking so bad he almost drops it before managing to get the speakerphone on.

“Cas - Cas is that you?”

At first, there’s only static. Sam and the others come piling back into the room. Immediately, Sam rushes to get his setup reassembled, Eileen passing him pieces that have shot away across the carpet. Jack dives in, so close to Dean that he bumps against him like an over-excited puppy. Finally a voice breaks through all the racket, and all at once it’s like there’s nobody else in the room.

“Dean - Dean I -”

“Cas,” Dean’s voice escapes like a sob. He pulls the phone close, cradling it as if that might preserve the tenuous connection. “I’m here Cas. I’m here - where are you?”

“I - I don’t know. It’s dark.” There’s a low, persistent hiss on the line, and Cas’ voice rises, falls, with the half-broken connection. There’s a fierce, distinct bolt of pain behind Dean’s left eye that he ignores.

“That’s okay Cas, that’s fine. Just keep talking.” His vision swims. “Talk to me, man.”

“I heard your voice,” Cas says, quiet. Dean would be embarrassed about how it sounds, except he just wants to keep hearing Cas’ voice. He never wants to stop hearing it. He wishes his heart would stop pounding so damned hard so he could hear it better. “But I can’t see - I don’t know where I am.”

“We’ll find you. Cas, I promise we’re gonna get you out, I - “

The phone beeps, the connection drops. Dean stares at it, helpless, his fingers curled so tightly around it that his knuckles have gone white. “What the hell - I thought you said I’d have a few _minutes_.”

“I said I didn’t know -” Sam looks up and his mouth drops open, his eyes wide and horrified. “Oh my god, Dean.”

A fat, dark drop of spatters the coffee table. Dean looks down at it, confused. “I - uh -” He reaches up to wipe his face, and his hand comes away bloody, the front of his shirt is soaked.

“Shit,” Dean mutters, and then the room turns sideways.

***

Despite Jack’s best intervention, Dean is left with a splitting headache for the rest of the day. He takes more painkillers than is probably strictly advisable and crawls into bed, then wakes up sometime around midnight, starving, with the taste of blood in the back of his throat.

There’s a plate of leftovers under plastic wrap waiting for him on the kitchen counter, because Sam may risk blowing up his brother’s brain with sketchy magic, but he wouldn’t let him starve. Dean eats in the living room, in the dark, grimly admiring the sigil left scorched on the surface of the coffee table. He’ll have to re-finish that, he decides, just to make it up to them.

_I heard your voice._

Dean glances at his phone, sitting out on the table. It still works, but now the screen is cracked. There’s a fifty-fifty shot, Dean figures, whether that was caused by the magic, or by his grip. No missed calls, so Cas hasn’t tried to get in touch with him again.

Dean pushes his plate aside, rubs his still faintly throbbing forehead. “Cas - I…”

“Uncle Dean?” Lilly stands on the stairs, in her white and green frog pyjamas that Dean got her for her last birthday, which she still insists on wearing, even though they’re going short at the cuffs, because she likes them best.

Dean forces a shaky smile, sits up tall. “Hey, squirt. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Uh-huh.” Her tiny feet pad across the rug, and she climbs into his lap, lays her head on his shoulder. Her hair smells like the strawberry shampoo she likes best, the stuff that comes in the little fish-shaped bottle.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

“No,” she mumbles into his shirt, while Dean’s hand rubs little circles on her back. “Daddy said you didn’t feel good. And you were sad. Because you miss your friend.”

Goddamn Sam. He couldn’t have told the kid a white lie? “Yeah. Yeah, I miss my friend.”

It’s so much bigger than that, but it’s also not something you explain to a kid. Dean didn’t even explain it to Sam until last year, here in this same living room. He’d kept the secret of what happened in the bunker for as long as he could, carrying it like a tumour in his chest, until he almost couldn’t breathe around it; finally let the whole story out on one particularly bad night, when he’d had just enough beer to loosen his tongue.

_Did you love him?_ He could remember Sam asking - no surprise in his voice at all.

_Why the hell does that matter now?_

_It always matters, Dean._

“Hey - do you wanna see what he looked like?” Dean stands, biting back a groan at the twin ache in his knees and back. Damn, he’s getting old. “Look here.”

One of many framed photos on the wall behind the couch is the one taken years ago, back in the days when they thought they’d only face one apocalypse in their lifetime. He and Sam look ridiculously young. Everyone else in the photo is gone. Dean taps his finger on the glass. “He’s this guy. The one in the goofy trench coat.”

Lilly sighs, laying her head on Dean’s shoulder. The photo has been here her entire life, and Dean’s not sure she’s ever looked at it. Most of the time, he tries not to look at it. “He looks nice,” she says.

_Nice_. Yeah. Dean feels a hollow kick in his chest. Cas would have liked Lilly, he thinks; they would have been on the same weird wavelength, just like Lilly and Jack are - collecting pretty leaves, digging for secrets in the dirt in the backyard, naming all the birds that lived in the big tree - living in the world like everything is new, and good things are everywhere if you just look for them.

“Hey - you want a glass of milk and a cookie before you go back to bed?” Dean asks her.

“Uh-huh.”

“Awesome. Me too.”

***

“I had a thought last night,” Sam says, after breakfast when Lilly has been safely tucked away in the backyard out of earshot and they’ve cleared the breakfast dishes to make room for all their research stuff on the table.

“Alright,” Dean says, “let’s hear it.”

“Remember those guys from that alternate dimension,” he begins, which is one of those weird statements that only people in their line of work ever have to make; like _when I was a vampire_ or _that time I went to Hell._ “They jumped off their world just as it was being destroyed, and they got stuck somewhere - They didn’t get erased.”

“You mean those Hunter Corp guys?”

Sam nods. “We always thought Chuck destroyed the Empty, but if Cas somehow got out just before it was destroyed, then maybe he’s somewhere in between.”

“It makes sense,” Eileen nods, flipping through one of the massive books. Dean’s not even sure what language it’s written in. Urdu? When did she learn to read Urdu? “Maybe that’s why Jack couldn’t find him. A place between two planes of existence might be out of God’s reach.”

“Okay - so what the hell does that mean?”

Eileen spins the book around, and jabs the page. Dean can’t read what it says, but the drawing in the center is pretty easy to understand - a big door. “We have to find a threshold; a place where the veil is thin. Or we have to create one. We draw him to it, and then we pull him across.”

It makes sense in theory, but Dean can count on one hand all the time theory has actually panned out for them. “How the hell do we get a lock on Cas, though? Even God junior here can’t pull that off.”

Jack scowls at him, but at this point, Dean is so accustomed to attracting negative attention from beings of powerful celestial intent that it doesn’t faze him at all. If the kid wants to smite him, he’s welcome to try.

“We use you,” Jack says. The room goes silent for a moment, then Jack blinks. “Well - Cas was already reaching out to him. That means Cas must be able to see him from wherever he is, at least sometimes. We just have to make him....brighter.”

Dean’s head throbs with sympathetic memory. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Sam digs up a bigger, flashier spell, something that both he and Jack swear up and down will make Dean _bright_.

_Good luck with that,_ Dean jokes, helplessly, as Eileen paints the sigils up and down his arms, _could have used that when I was in high school_.

The paint itches, and it reeks (of course). Eileen waves to Lilly, playing in the sandbox, and then closes the curtains. Just in case. Dean stands awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen floor and tries not to scratch at his arms, while Sam starts his long recitation.

When he finishes, Dean’s arms still itch. In fact, nothing at all seems different.

“Great,” Dean mutters, rubbing at his wrist. “So that’s out. Any other ideas on how we find Cas?”

_Dean?_ Cas’ voice hits him like a blow to the head. Dean doubles over, cursing, hands pressed to his ears. Sam’s hand braces against his back. _Dean!_

“Fuck - too fucking _loud_ Cas! Take it easy!”

_I can see you. Dean, I can see you!_

It’s not any quieter. Dean has stood next to speakers at rocks concerts that made him feel less like his bones were vibrating. He grits his teeth against it. The skin on his arms feels like it’s on fire. “You can see me - can you get here?”

_I’m trying!_

Dean’s legs shake. Sam braces him as he sinks to the floor. “I can stop the spell -”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Look!” Eileen shouts - and there, like a strange mirage, standing almost close enough for Dean to reach out and touch, is a hazy vision of Cas. It looks like he’s standing just on the other side of some grey curtain, and he’s looking straight at Dean like he can definitely see him - him and only him.

Jack reaches out, and tears open the veil. There’s a bright flash of blue-white light, and Cas spills out onto the linoleum, almost landing right on top of Dean. The air smells like a lightning strike, and it’s cold enough that Dean’s breath fogs the air for a few seconds before the temperature equalizes.

“Cas…” Dean pats at him with trembling hands, gets two solid fistfuls of his coat. Cas looks around, eyes wide and lost, like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. “Cas. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“Dean,” Cas breathes shakily, looping his arms around Dean’s shoulders, holding on for dear life.

***

Dinner that night is like the best holiday Dean has ever celebrated. He grins until his face hurts, laughs until his chest aches, sitting next to Cas at the table, bumping their shoulders together every time he gets a chance.

Lilly, predictably, thinks Cas is the greatest person she’s ever met. She shows him all her favourite toys, her leaf collection, her rocks; makes him read her favourite book - _If You Give a Moose a Muffin_ ; Dean gave it to her last Christmas, just to see the look on Sam’s face - until Cas starts to look hazy around the eyes, and Dean announces, “Okay squirt - time for Cas to hit the hay. He’s had a long day.”

Which is how Cas ends up in the guest bedroom, and Dean ends up on the sofa, and Jack goes - wherever Jack goes, because he doesn’t even pretend to sleep anymore. And Dean’s exhausted, but he can’t sleep. He lies awake, listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock and the settling of the house, until he can’t take it anymore and goes upstairs.

He swears to himself that he’s just going to look - just going to make sure Cas is still there and that some fucking bizarre complication hasn’t snatched him back to the space between worlds; but when the stip of light falls across the bed, Cas’ eyes snap open.

“Dean? Is everything alright?”

“Shit - yeah, sorry - I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m alright,” Cas says, sitting up. His hair is flattened on one side, sticking up in the most ridiculous way, and Dean’s palms itch to smooth it down. “You can come in.”

Against his better judgement, Dean steps inside, and closes the door behind himself. Cas swings his legs over the side of the bed, making room for him to sit. He looks strange, dressed in an extra pair of Dean’s sweats, an old T-shirt, sitting there in the dark.

Dean taps the ball of his foot against the floor, just to break the silence. “So much for an eternity in the Empty, huh?”

Cas looks at him - furrowed brow, slight frown. Dean’s missed that look. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Dean snorts. “No it didn’t. It seemed like the only idea. And it probably was. But goddamn it, Cas...I was so pissed at you. For so long. You dumped all that on me and -”

“All that?” Cas interjects, his voice going sharp around the edges, and Dean feels a familiar cold bolt of dread. It’s always like this with them - with _him_.

“Yeah - you said all that stuff, and I didn’t know what to do with it, Cas. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, and you were just fucking _gone_ \- “ Dean sigh, closing his hands into fists - the shape they still know best, as much as he fights it. “I’m still not sure I know.”

Cas - gingerly - reaches over and sets his warm, heavy hand over Dean’s closed fist. Slowly, Dean uncurls his fingers, relaxes until their hands are pressed together. “That’s alright,” he says; and it’s a goddamn injustice, that Cas was okay with just being there forever - that he just expected to live with never having what he wanted.

They’re not so different like that, Dean thinks. He’s never really believed he could have what he wanted either.

“I missed you, Cas.” The other words he wants to say are right there, trapped somewhere under his tongue.

Cas leans into him, “I missed you too.”

“I should let you go back to sleep.” Dean’s pretty exhausted himself. The last couple of days have been a roller coaster. His ears are still buzzing from the roar of Cas’ voice, and he’s still clearing the blood out of his nose.

Cas squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

Dean’s stomach swoops, and he swallows it down, hears his own throat click in the quiet darkness. “I - “ he tries, but the excuse doesn’t really exist. He doesn’t _want_ to go back downstairs and sleep on the couch. He wants to be where Cas is, to know that he’s there. “Alright.”

They get under the covers, first lying each on their own narrow strip of bed; then Cas turns towards him, hesitates, and Dean grabs his wrist, pulling Cas’ arm across his chest.

Sleep hits him like a ton of bricks, and Dean doesn’t wake up until the next morning, to the sound of Sam’s voice saying - _Lilly, sweetheart, I think maybe we should just let Cas and Uncle Dean come down when they’re ready, okay?_ and Cas snickering softly in his ear.

“Oh you think that’s fucking funny, do you?” Dean mutters, hoarsely, nosing into Cas’ messy hair, where he smells like the wind in the coldest part of winter.

Cas is mostly under the blankets, his ridiculous bed head poking out like some kind of over-enthusiastic brush plant. “I do, a little,” he mumbles, his arm still tight across Dean’s chest, his breath warm against Dean’s shoulder.

“I’ll show you funny,” Dean counters, and digs his fingers into Cas’ ribs until he squirms and gasps with laughter.

***

The next few days are a little surreal, to say the least.

The first thing they do is buy Cas a full wardrobe. According to Jack, he burned out his grace just to reach their side of the veil. Whether or not it will eventually come back on its own is anyone’s guess, but in the meantime, Cas needs clean underwear and socks - pants that aren’t Dean’s. 

Not that he doesn’t look good in Dean’s pants.

They spend most of their time just relaxing, moving around each other like a complicated dance. They take Lilly to the park, run as many errands as Eileen and Sam will trust them with, go on long drives, and watch too much TV. Cas and Jack go on long walks, or spend hours sitting in the backyard, talking.

Every night, they have dinner - six of them crowded around the table, elbows bumping, and go to bed hoarse with laughter.

Dean falls asleep next to Cas every night, wakes up with him every morning. He keeps expecting to wake up alone, in a saggy motel bed, with discarded beers on the nightstand and reruns on the TV. Every time it doesn’t happen, it’s a beautiful shock, like a reward he didn’t have to earn.

And he tries to say it, he really does - because it’s there and it’s real, and just like Sam said, it absolutely matters - but it chokes him, because he doesn’t know how to do it without crushing the whole thing in his hands.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Sam,” he says, one night when it’s just the two of them, sitting on the front step with a couple of beers. He can hear Cas dutifully reciting the pages of _If you Give a Moose a Muffin_ through the screen door. Lilly’s had him read it so many times that he must have it memorized by now.

Sam laughs, “Sure you do. You’re just scared.”

“Oh, screw you -”

“You know exactly what you’re doing, Dean,” Sam says, cutting him off. “Just lean into it a little. Don’t worry about the end. Not everything is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Which is rich, considering Dean has spent most of his life careening from one disaster to another. 

So Dean holds on to it, keeps what he knows like a secret, a treasure he buries inside of himself, the same way he always has - until one afternoon Cas comes in from outside, where he’s been playing with Lilly, digging in the fresh-turned ground of Sam’s makeshift garden plot, stripped bare for the winter; and there’s dirt all over his hands, streaked on his smiling face - and suddenly it’s too much. It’s too heavy to carry anymore, too big to keep trapped behind his teeth. Dean loves him, god, loves him so much it stops his heart, and his breath, and leaves him gasping in the middle of the kitchen.

“Dean, are you -” Cas starts, but doesn't get to finish. Dean pulls Cas in, wiping the dirt from his cheeks with both hands, and kisses his grinning mouth. Cas’ hands flutter to his belt, then dig in tight, like he’s afraid Dean will fly away the moment he lets go.

Dean barely leaves enough room between them for air.

“Hey,” he says, and Cas smiles at him, huge and watery and uncertain. Dean wants to kiss him again, but he has to say it first. “I love you, you know. You can have that. I want you to have it.”

Then he kisses Cas again, at last - then twice more for good luck; and then again, because he can.

He can have the things he wants, too.

-End-


End file.
